It's not the first HBO series to look at the themes of family ancestry, and how knowledge of the past can impact someone's present. It’s about intimate family relationships, the bond of being in a family, but also the burden.' ' something I’ve tried to deal with in my films–this idea of ancestral choices and familial traumas that reverberate through generations,' he said in the same Screendaily interview. Cianfrance, who is based out of New York City but has an Italian-American heritage, felt a bond with that aspect of the story as well. The book also looks at the twins' grandmother, an immigrant from Italy. “In a family, you see all sides of a person – the good, the bad and the ugly.” “I make films about family because family relationships are the most intimate relationships we have,” Cianfrance told Screendaily. In the book, I Know This Much Is True frequently draws upon these same family themes, not only focusing on the relationship between Dominick and Thomas, but also looking at relationship they have with their mother, their strict and distant stepfather, and even the relationship that both have with Dominick's ex-wife.

Blue Valentine closely examines the dissolution of a romantic relationship. The Place Beyond The Pines looks at the complex relationships in a handful of different father-son pairings, and what that means to different people. The director's previous projects have focused intently on different family functions.

All of this is outlined in Lamb's book, which is what drew Cianfrance to the project. One, Dominick, is the story's narrator his brother, Thomas- significantly larger due to the medication he takes-suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, and is often subject to volatile behavior. The crux of I Know This Much Is True centers on the twins being played by Ruffalo. The biggest difference, though, is that those projects, though, is that rather than be based upon his own original script, this series was adapted from author Wally Lamb's 900+ page book of the same name. The six-part limited series comes from writer/director Derek Cianfrance, best known for his movies The Place Beyond The Pines and Blue Valentine. HBO's long tradition of Sunday night drama continues this week, as the prestige cable giant debuts I Know This Much Is True, a limited series that features Mark Ruffalo as the headliner-playing twins.

The 900+ page book was a June 1998 entry of Oprah's Book Club.

Starring Mark Ruffalo and written/directed by Derek Cianfrance, it's based on Wally Lamb's 1998 novel of the same name.

I Know This Much Is True is HBO's latest prestige miniseries.

I know this much is true wally